Cradled In Iron
by ZuanTheGreat
Summary: Death is just another opportunity. Now, as Hokoshi Hisoka, they'll do their best to save the w- nah. Hisoka really just doesn't want to die.
1. Chapter 1

When I was reborn, I squandered quite a bit of time in a haze of confusion. First off, I was a baby with limited processing capabilities. The only way I even knew what I looked like was because I had accidentally found a mirror while attempting to wander the house I had found myself in. I was surprised to find that I didn't look too much different from how I did as a baby in my old life. I mean, I was half Chinese originally so it wasn't as far of a stretch to change my features into what was common in whatever bastardized version of Japan, but my new body had distinctly paler skin, kinda like how I was that summer that I didn't go outside and instead slept 14 hours per day, and different eyes. My original body had eyes that could bulge out of my face and made for great funny faces, but not anymore. I had better vision though, so I guess that made up for it.

Secondly, I don't really… speak Japanese. Of course, I took like four years of it in high school, but I barely passed two of those years and spent most of my time in class confused out of my mind, so that only helped me in figuring out that my new name was Hokoshi Hisoka, as well as a few other vague things. Somehow, the few phrases I did remember from Japanese class worked pretty well in my life. This being me, those phrases included "I don't understand", "Can I go to the bathroom", "I'm hungry", and the classic "What man is this?". Luckily it seemed as if people were correct in saying that it's easier to learn a language when you're immersed in it. With absolutely no reprieve from it, I started getting better and better. I still wasn't very good for my true age, but for a child I was doing okay.

Due to my lack of Japanese knowledge (in both language and geography, apparently), it ended up taking me quite a while to notice that I was in fact, in another universe. And that universe happened to be the Naruto universe. Or one close to it at the very least.

Okay, I'm also apparently very oblivious. With my (still) shit vision, I ended up thinking that I was in a weird cross between Japan and South Dakota for a while, despite the fact that the area surrounding Mount Rushmore is a lot different than the area around the Hokage Monument. I mean, there are lots of trees in the area? Which is basically the only similarity. Also, I don't think Japan actually has anything like a mountain full of faces, but I wouldn't know.

I think I figured it out by age three or four. Too much later than that makes me sound like a huge idiot, rather than the regular sized idiot I actually am. This was around the time that my father began to take me around to more shinobi-populated areas, in the hopes of me taking after him. So it would be pretty hard not to notice by this point. There was only so many times that your father could pull you out of the way of a stray bladed projectile before you realized that something was a bit off with your surroundings. I normally only have bladed weapons thrown at me during family reunions (my uncle was drunk and wanted to teach me how to throw axes, okay? It wasn't that weird). But I did find out.

After that shocking revelation, I ended up asking my father as many questions as I could about his career with my limited Japanese. He was delighted, and took that as a sign that I was going to follow in his footsteps. Which I would, eventually, but for now I was pretty terrified. For future reference, make note of the fact that I am not athletic in the slightest. But back to my father.

My questioning prompted an hour long lecture on our family history, which he later claimed to have watered down enough to get his point across to a four year old. (He didn't.) But from the bits I understood, the Hokoshi clan originally came from Iron, and immigrated… sometime. I'm still iffy on numbers, even after all these years. Our clan has been shinobi for quite a few generations, but we don't have a kekkei genkai to elevate our status, only a few family techniques that get passed down. Overall, we're pretty average. Which is a good thing, because average shinobi don't get into drama. Unlike literally all of the Rookie 9, which I faintly hoped I was not now going to be a part of.

Due to my newfound interest in all things ninja, my father began teaching me little bits of things that I'd need to know. I started learning kunai throwing at age five, which I personally didn't think was all that weird, but I'd always had a pretty skewed set of morals. He tried to get me into the more physical aspects of training, but I held back, wanting to use more long distance weapons and possibly poisons. Those didn't make you run laps. Like yeah, physical exercise is pretty important if I was inevitably going to be a ninja, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to do it. I may have been a black belt in both Wing Chun and Lima Lama, but I also ran thirteen minute miles when actually trying, so I was still in the 'can't exercise for shit' camp.

Throwing kunai was both easier and harder than I had expected. Even with the child-sized, blunted ones that my father gave me, they still stuck into the wooden posts easily, likely due to, I dunno, aerodynamics, optimized lack of wind resistance, or maybe just some random ninja bullshit. The hard part was the aiming. Especially because there were three different ways to throw kunai, and the one that was standard for shinobi was also the hardest for me to master. My wrists are kinda weak, so I kept putting a spin on the kunai instead of throwing them straight as I was supposed to. That just made aiming harder. Even if I still had the muscle memory from my old life, I still wouldn't be very good, as I had been most accustomed to heftier weapons, like axes and shit, or ones that were completely different from kunai, like my staff or my nunchucks.

The poisons were my own idea, because they seemed easy enough to do, as there was no physical component, and because despite it's dangerous nature, it mainly just required lots of memorization and science, which happened to be a subject that I didn't fail at school. I didn't exactly tell my father about this new development, but I strongly doubted that he could disagree with my actions after he had started me off on weapons, which was arguably worse than reading up on poisons. Unfortunately, poisons turned out to be far less useful than I had hoped. For a long-range fighter or a more stealthy person, they'd be useful, but I was currently a short/medium-range fighter, and my aim was still abysmal, even for an academy student. Which I wasn't, but I would be in the academy in a couple years, because my father wanted me in earlier than normal, but not so early as to have me graduating before age ten. Most civilians enter at age eight, and stay there until age twelve, unless they choose to test out early. Most don't though, as the ones good enough to test out normally aren't adjusted enough to pass the mental evaluation. Which, of course, is the only reason Sasuke (and most of the clan heirs) stuck it out through the academy.

So for the time being, I gave up on poisons. That isn't to say that I stopped researching completely, I just put more focus on the dreaded physical education. But I also kept a variety of homebrewed poisons in different unbreakable compartments on my person, to be used in an emergency. Konoha may be well protected, but creeps are everywhere. And it wasn't like the poisons were very toxic either. I painstakingly made them in my own bathroom, so their potency was greatly reduced by the lack of wholly sanitary conditions and the fact that I had to also grow my own plants for the poison, which were hard enough to obtain as a four year old, and even harder to grow in my sink. I mean, I had like, a box, but it was still in my sink.

I settled in a sort of routine. I'd wake up at 6:30 every morning, make myself breakfast, take a short run around the area, take a shower, go to the library, take a nap (I was still reveling in the way that I could go to bed earlier than 1 AM), and wake up to my father coming home, which could be at 5 o'clock or 2 the next day. From there I'd have him train me a little bit, depending on how tired he was at the time.

With a routine settled, I began to try and learn more about my new existence. If I was gonna puppetmaster the shit out of this place, I couldn't do it with just the vague, unreliably narrated bits of the manga that I could remember.

I'm slightly ashamed that it took me five years to ask about my mother, but I hadn't had one for so long that I kinda forgot about the fact that most children tend to have a mother.

"Chichi, where's okaa-san?" I asked, during a long period of silence during dinner.

The room seemed to go quiet, even though no one had been speaking in the first place. He put down his chopsticks and faced me, looking straight into my eyes.

"Your okaa-san was killed during the Kyuubi attack, shortly after you were born."

The rest of the meal was eaten in silence, and I spent the time figuring out what that meant in relation to my future in this world.

My father ended up telling me quite a bit of information with only a short sentence. The time of my mother's death meant that I was most likely very close to being the same age as Naruto. And if that was correct… well, all of the self insert fanfictions I had read might end up paying off. However, the only thought that came to mind after realizing this was that I really hoped I wasn't a main character. Main characters always go through a bunch of trials and hardships, which usually leave them near death. Not really my speed.

But if I was going to be stuck with that destiny, I'd have to go with the flow. And by going with the flow, I'd have to start making allies, trying to manipulate the plot as best as I could, and yes, actually work hard on physical training.

Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

I could only do so much on the manipulation side with the limited resources of my family, and aside from sending out a couple anonymous letters that I was pretty sure couldn't be traced back to me, I knew I had to do something else. Fortunately, I had started up a small courier business in order to look less suspicious when delivering information (and for the money), and ended up meeting quite a few people that way.

One such person happened to be Morino Ibiki.

The first time we met, I was delivering a package that was completely covered in seals to T&I Headquarters. He was standing near the main entrance, clearly expecting somebody. That somebody was not me. I went to go and give the lackey working at the front desk my package, but was instead locked into a staring contest by possibly the most threatening person I had met. Morino-san hadn't looked too scary in the anime, but in real life, especially to a small child, he was terrifying. I managed to last pretty long though, which was better than I expected. I had kinda thought that I would end up wetting my pants or crying. When I did blink, eyes watering slightly (no, I wasn't crying, and if I was you can't prove it), he looked… vaguely amused? I don't know what I did, but I think it was good.

To be fair, I do have quite a bit of an obsession with the T&I department, due to an unhealthy love of danger and people who could kill me. Especially those who could do it with only their thighs. But then I remembered that I was only five right now, and that would be pedophillia. Or child abuse? Either way, I decided to at least wait until I was a teenager to find someone willing to crush me in between their thighs. Luckily for me, in this world you could just buy a bingo book!

Anyway, after that semi-disturbing train of thoughts, I continued on to the desk where the worker had been staring at us nervously for the past… however long it had taken us to finish our staring contest. He probably wasn't used to five-year-olds being near Morino Ibiki. I gently placed the scroll in his hands, as he wasn't really responding. Too busy being dumbstruck.

I went back over to Morino-san, as I was bored and I had just finished my last scheduled delivery for the day.

"G-got anything that needs to be delivered?" I said, only stuttering a little bit from his sheer presence.

He continued to stare me down, but one eyebrow was cocked.

"Is that a no?"

"No."

"Is that 'No, you do have a package', or 'No, that is a no'. Very different things, those are."

"Yes, I do have something to be delivered. Can you throw a kunai?"

"...Yeah."

"Take this," he said, pulling one out from a pouch on one of his thighs (that could probably crush m-) and handing it to me, "Deliver this to the dango shop a few blocks down from here. If you see a lady with purple hair and skimpy clothes, throw it at her and tell her that I want her to get back to work."

I normally don't do stupid shit like this but- oh, who am I kidding. I'm an idiot, I do stupid shit like this all the time. So what if I die, it'll be fun. Plus, I'll get to see Anko, and Anko's super hot. So I shrugged and left to go find the dango shop.

As it turns out, "a few blocks away" isn't a very precise set of directions. Despite having a rough mental map of the village due to courier work, I still don't know exact locations unless I've delivered there often, and I don't normally go to dango shops. It took me a little less than half an hour to find it, and when I did, I immediately spotted Anko. She did kinda stand out in the pleasant atmosphere of the shop.

I walked in, and, with a brief apology to the waitress, I threw the kunai at Anko. Expectedly, she caught it and chucked it back, much faster than I had. Prepared, I ducked, but within a few seconds she had me in a chokehold and the kunai that I dodged held to my throat.

"Morino-san… told… me to… tell you... to get… back… to work." I gasped, struggling for air against her arm.

"Oh! Why didn't you say that before kid?" She exclaimed cheerfully, but her words had a sharp edge to them, and she hadn't yet let go of my neck.

And so I was dragged back to T&I headquarters.

Morino-san was waiting, and I ended up stuck in between their staring contest. It's just as bad as being a part of it.

This went on for several minutes, and I was beginning to wonder exactly how long they could keep their eyes open, and how much longer I could keep going like this before I inevitably passed out. However, this was also around the time that Yamanaka Inoichi left for his lunch break, so I ended up being saved by the much less intimidating man. He pried Anko's arm away from my neck, and steered me away from the building.

Inoichi-san smiled kindly, but I knew that he would be willing and ready to interrogate me in the instant I said something about anything I wasn't supposed to know.

"You look just about my daughter's age. How old are you?"

"Five," I answered hesitantly.

"Ah, so is she. You'll be going to the academy at same time, right?"

I nodded.

"Your father is Hokoshi Hiei, isn't he. He's been bragging about your progress in the jounin lounge."

"He's… proud of me. And slightly overbearing."

"Sounds like him. What are your hobbies? Since you and my Ino will be going to school together, it might be nice if you were friends before."

So that was his way of keeping an eye on me. It makes sense, as he had a kid my age and good reason to make sure a courier was still loyal to the village, even if said courier was only five.

"I like… drawing and reading."

"Ino-chan likes drawing as well, but she likes her flowers more. You should come visit us someday!"

"Eto… maybe if Chichi says yes."

He did.

Seeing Ino as a child was… odd. While I had seen her like this in a filler episode at least once, that didn't mean that I wasn't surprised. Little Ino was wearing a t-shirt and shorts just like I was, far from the crop top and miniskirt combo of her later years. She also had short hair, which made sense, as she only started growing it out once she became Sasuke-obsessed.

The meeting was pretty awkward. I was pretty good with children in my last life, but now that I was a child it was a struggle. At home, I didn't have to pretend to be childish, as my father had no previous experience with children and therefore went along with everything obliviously, but Inoichi was supervising us, which made me wary. I couldn't act too much like an adult, but I couldn't act too immature because I hadn't when I first met him. Man, I just needed to shut my mouth.

Which reminded me, if I was to stay in this strange, anime-style world, it would be best to find a strange, anime-style trope to attach to myself. Since as far as I knew, most the tropes that I could commonly recognize were already taken by canon characters, I would have to find a new one that would suit me. None of the -dere types would work, as they required a love interest, and I had no interest in anyone my physical age for obvious reasons. I am not a pedophile, thank god. So that left me a smaller amount to work with, and from that smaller section I was able to make a decision. I would be… the Aloof Dark-Haired Character! Now, you may wonder, how is that any different than Sasuke? Well, the Aloof Dark-Haired Character, more commonly known as the Aloof Dark-Haired Girl (but I don't like gendering tropes) is strong and silent and sweet. Or rather, as that was mainly for purposes of alliteration, the more mature, almost parent-like figure in a group of people, who is either deemed cold or idolized, or both! Which is kinda what I was going for, with my mild narcissism and constant need for affection while also wanting distance.

Unfortunately, this would only work if I played nice with the other children, but who knows. Maybe it'll work.

While I was pondering the ramifications of my newfound existence, I was also, incidentally, ignoring the Yamanaka's. Inoichi looked bemused when I finally finished my train of thoughts, but Ino was just annoyed. I didn't know what to do with her, especially now that she was angry. Generally children either love me or hate me, with no real in between. Also, their opinions of me generally stay the same. So, Ino and I were off to a bad start.

After a few more minutes of awkward talking, I gently dismissed myself from their house and began the trek home. The village was fairly small in comparison to my life in the city, which, while more compact, was also a maze of buildings. In Konoha, you could see most of the village if you just climbed a tree (which there were many of). That, along with helpful villagers and my own navigational skills (which only really worked in places I had explored until I knew well), worked to get me back home safely.

Chichi wasn't home when I got there. As a jounin, he ended up getting called out for missions pretty often, but less so than some others due to having a young child. Konoha was the nice village for a reason. But we had a decent system worked out. Despite being only five, I was expected to be able to take care of myself for the most part. Which was okay with me because I was a fairly decent cook, and with my father gone, I could experiment with different recipes, some from my old world and some of my own creation. Back in the old world, my dad never let me do anything food related, so this sudden freedom felt great. Also, in this world, I had all of my taste buds still, as the lightbulb incident of '09 hadn't happened. That was another pleasant surprise after around 8 years without being able to taste everything that I ate.

I whipped up something quickly, and flung myself up the stairs while it cooked in order to get my notebooks. Seven notebooks, each completely filled with cramped, tiny, English writing. In there were recordings of everything I could remember from the Naruto manga and anime, including things from fanworks and any possible theories about how I got here and how my presence might affect the canon timeline. Would it still stay the same and I would just be shunted into the position of a side character? Or would I join the ranks of the main characters and end up throwing the plot into chaos? Any dreams, thoughts, and theories got stuffed into the journals. Father tolerated it with amusement, but it was still better to be careful. Too much oddity could get you institutionalized, even with the oddities allowed for jounin and the like. By that point, you were allowed to do weird things to cope, but a child was still held to some amount of mental health standards.

I wrote down things that happened to me currently as well, as writing things down made events easier to remember. However, this was mainly done in a more diary-like notebook, which was completely written in Japanese to help with my writing abilities. Some of it was in a form of code, one that I had developed based around a mixture of one I was taught by an old friend, and one I had created with another friend that we used to cheat on tests with. The latter may not have had the most auspicious beginnings, but it worked well with my new life. It was with that code that I wrote about the events of the day, which had been far more productive than I had expected. A delivery to T&I was one thing, but meeting Ibiki, Anko, Inoichi, and Ino in just one day? It was nothing short of ridiculous. Also, it might be an indication that Plot would be happening soon. Which meant that it was going to be time to implement my plans soon. I could only do so much right as I was though. The majority would come in while I was a genin, which was still a couple years off.

With that in mind and my diary entry finished, I packed the notebooks back away in my room, only then realizing that my food was long since done. In fact, it was burnt beyond repair. Groaning, I threw a couple eggs in a pan with some soy sauce and whatever else was in the fridge in order to make a half-hearted omelette. The previous meal I scraped into the trash.

To my relief, the next day was pretty uneventful. My father came in early in the morning, so we ate breakfast before he went to sleep for the afternoon. While he took an early nap, I grabbed my list of groceries and meandered all the way to the market. It being Konoha, the marketplace was huge, bigger than the farmer's markets back in my old world. There were merchants who came from all over just to sell their wares, and they all culminated into the main streets. I looked around at their wares, and managed to haggle well enough to get our groceries for around half the price my father would get them for, leaving me with plenty of money to buy more for my hoard.

In the spirit of preparing several years in advance, I had taken to collecting a veritable army's worth (in my opinion) of weaponry for future use in missions or the chunin exams and beyond. Some were simple kunai and shuriken that I had taken from my father when I was absolutely sure he wasn't using them, and others were ones that I had bought or picked up from the bins of rusted, malformed, or otherwise damaged weapons that were kept outside the weapons shops and painstakingly fixed with a whetstone that I had also bought. Others still were picked up from training grounds after practices and put into the hoard. After about two years of this, I managed to amass a stock of 174 kunai, 152 shuriken, 125 senbon, 50 makibishi (or Japanese caltrops), 7 windmill shuriken, a tanto, 2 katanas, a pair of those armored gloves, some training weights, and a breastplate. This was fine in my book, but would be considered overkill by most people, especially due to my status as a five-year-old, not even an academy student. So, I hid those too. Of course, I also collected non-weaponry shinobi essentials, like a file, a mirror, a couple of radios, a large amount of ninja wire, and my most prized possession, seals.

I myself couldn't create seals, as my handwriting wasn't quite up to par, and the theory generally required years of learning, unless you were the main character that is. So I bought from people instead. While Seal Masters were scarce, there were a reasonable amount of people who could make the generic sealing scrolls and explosive tags. Retired chunin and jounin who had settled down and wanted something to work on to keep busy sometimes turned to seals. Due to that, many of the seal makers were women who retired after giving birth but refused to be a housewife, not that there was anything wrong with that.

The only thing that meant was that my supplier was a lot more helpful than I had expected. Ikuma-san may have left behind the shinobi life for a family one, but that didn't mean that she had forgotten all she had learned. And as a former chunin, she was invaluable to my pre-academy studies. She was also the one who started me off on chakra training. Now I know, most people would start right off with chakra because 'ooh, magic powers', but to be frank, I was terrified of trying to use chakra. The first lesson in Naruto about chakra is about it being a mixture of physical and spiritual energy, and it didn't seem like it would work as well with such an imbalance in power. My spiritual energy came from the excess memories in my head, but the physical energy from a body that was only five years old was not much by any means. It was with her guidance that I even tried it out, but it worked about as well as I had suspected.

I was still 5, so she gave me an easier task than tree walking or the leaf exercise. All I had to do was meditate and try to feel the mixing of physical and spiritual energies in my body. It seemed simple enough. Just draw a bit from the brain and the body, and try to mix it a bit. But when I attempted to do so, I realized that it was going to be even harder than I thought. I reached for both, and felt something slippery and warm and hard to hold onto, kinda like a greased pig. Trying to yank it down somewhat physically wasn't working, so I tried to lead it there with my mind rather than tugging at it. I worked, but when I attempted to mix the two energies, the mental energy overwhelmed and smothered the physical, leaving my body drained and confused. I relayed this to the seal maker, and she said "You're either very weak or very, very experienced for your age. Either way, you'll need to build up your strength before you start to really use chakra well. Although it may come in handy later if you're a genjutsu user or something, you need to be able to mix chakra equally if you're going to learn the basics."

And that began my true foray into strength training. Even though I had been training, it wasn't good enough. I hadn't expected to need so much, but I found it getting easier and easier to mold chakra as I got stronger. I logged my progress in one of my notebooks until that one ran out, and then I had to grab a new one. By that point I had started wearing the training weights everywhere, upping the weight every once in awhile to keep myself at the right level of straining. I walked around town, saying hello to anyone I knew, which happened to be a surprising number of people, and made my way to the closest shop that I knew sold the notebooks I like. The store owner looked up when he heard the door chime and laughed when he saw it was me.

"Another one already? You've probably written more in four months than most people do in a year!" He exclaimed, and laughed as I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly.

Those notebooks I mentioned? They're only slightly smaller than regular books. And they're also a bit more organized than I may have implied. One was for everything I could remember about the Naruto series, another for theories, two for my past life, one for everything I had learned in my past life, one was the diary, and another was the one where I tracked my progress with chakra and strength training. Somehow, I managed to use up the last one really quickly, mainly due to training multiple times per day, each in a different aspect of training, and each aspect getting a few pages at least.

I looked around the shop for one I liked, before settling on one similar to the others, but in the same color as the other training diary. I'm a sucker for color coordination, so what? The Naruto book was an orangey color, the theory book was blue, my past life was purple, the things that I had learned was yellow, the diary was green, and the training log was red. And yes, I organized them in rainbow order when I could.

After having paid for my book, I left the store and decided to get back to work. My courier business had been suffering a bit while I threw myself into my studies, as I hadn't had as much time to go gallivanting around Konoha. That didn't mean that I had stopped entirely, I just hadn't gone around asking for packages to deliver. My training was far from over, but that didn't mean I didn't appreciate the extra money that being a courier got me. Which reminded me, Morino-san never paid me, despite the fact that I risked my life by delivering his 'message'.

And that gave me an excuse to go back to T&I!

I made my way down to the semi-secluded area of Konoha where it lay with mild cheer. I had a great fascination with the department, even though I would most likely hate the job if I actually had it, but those pulses of fascination wouldn't go away until I had at least done something about them. Which was also the reason why I had three hand-knitted scarves, I full set of PVC foam armor, and several sets of handmade clothes in my past life. I can't get rid of an urge without doing something about it at least once.

This "at least once" would be both easier and harder to get out of. Easier, because I would only take a second before chickening out and/or having a panic attack, but harder because that required an actual attempt to get someone to let a child try torture lest I get overly invested in it so much that I'd stick with it.

With the amount of time taken up by my internal ramblings, I was quickly at the T&I department. I wandered in, careful not to act exceedingly casually, and headed for the desk. There was a new worker there, one who presumably didn't know about my previous interaction with the head of the department, who stared at me in confusion.

"Hey kid, you lost? You shouldn't be wandering around in a place like this." The man asked, "Do you have a parent I can call?"

I shook my head and instead asked for Morino-san. The guy seemed even more confused.

"He owes me money," I stated nonchalantly, feigning innocence about the real reason he was staring.

"Oookay, I'll call him up. But if you're trying to be funny, just know that the boss doesn't like jokes."

I sat down on a nearby chair, fully prepared to wait, as neither the worker nor Morino-san was likely to put my request at the top of their schedule. But surprisingly, I was wrong.

Morino-san strode in with the same grim air he always had only two minutes later.

"Ah. So you're the kid asking after me. What do you want this time?"

"My money. My services aren't free."

"You've got balls, kid. Fine," Morino-San said, handing me the money, "Treat yourself."

Getting money is always a win in my book, so I grinned and made my way out.

I went on my way until I came upon the main playground area. I didn't normally go around there, as I was still adjusting to life as a child, and I normally wouldn't have stopped. However, someone familiar was calling my name.

Of course, it was Ino. She's one of the very few people here that even vaguely knows me and would be calling from a playground. So obviously, I had to see what she wanted.

She walked up to me, an odd look on her face.

"You're weird."

That was surprisingly blunt for Ino, but who was I to judge? So was I. Maybe she just decided to stop bothering with politeness when she wasn't around her dad. Who knows?

"...Thank you, Ino-chan."

"That wasn't meant to be a compliment!"

Ooh, now she's yelling. I wonder what I did to make her feel this strongly. All I could recall was one stunted conversation…

"Look," she gritted out, done with my bullshit, "I can tell that you aren't… right. Maybe the adults can't tell, but I can. And so can the other kids. I don't know what you really are, but you should just stay away from us, alright?"

Huh. That… was not what I expected. I guess it makes sense that a Yamanaka would be the first to figure out that I'm not a child.

"Thank you, Yamanaka-san. I will do my best to stay out of your way, but do know that I mean no harm to you or anyone in Konoha. Goodbye."

And with that, I left, off to continue my life as far away from terrifyingly suspicions little 5-year-olds as possible while keeping to my planned timeline.

Well, there go my last hopes of being able to puppetmaster my way out of doing anything. I guess it's time for plan B: switch classes and become a tank. Go all out on defense and a bit less so on physical strength, and just try not to die.

Now that I didn't have anyone to try and sway to my side, as long as I don't want to go and deal with anyone smarter than a five-year-old, who might figure out that I'm actually an adult in a child's body, I decided to focus more on my fighting progress. Ikuma sensei was a big help, as she was pretty good at taijutsu. Unfortunately, she also wouldn't let me slack off. At one point I definitely tried, but even though I went home and chose to stay on the roof, where she probably wouldn't be able to see me, she managed to drag me back. Okay, yeah, that doesn't sound like much of a feat, but she didn't even use any chakra. I could tell. She just hauled ass up the wall, and dragged me back. My house is two stories tall. It was pretty fucking badass.

By my next birthday, I was ready to retry chakra training. My stamina was better, as was my general fitness, making me a fairly buff 6-year-old. I began to attempt the exercise that I could remember, starting with those that didn't require a chakra nature. On that note, I should find mine out. It'd be helpful in the long run, especially as I was going to have to give myself a specialty at some point. But at this point, I guess I'll just stick with like, tree walking, and water walking, and apparently nothing else. There is literally no other exercise that I can remember. There's the leaf exercise, I guess, but that's also for chakra specialized training, which I still haven't figured out. Note to self: buy chakra paper, like, as soon as possible. But anyway, I started off on the tree climbing exercise, as it was the very first one shown in the anime, so it was probably, or at least hopefully, the easiest.

Now, I totally stole this from a fanfiction that had Sakura as the main character, which I can't remember the name of, but I started off by trying to stick my hand to the tree, rather than just going all out running at it. I gathered my chakra, steadily drawing it out, and was fairly astonished when I was able to actually feel the chakra once it was outside my body. I mean, it wasn't totally tangible, but it felt a bit like... slippery cotton candy, except made of light? Okay, maybe that wasn't the best example, but that was what it felt like. The point is that I could mold it, physically. I'm pretty sure that that wasn't something that was supposed to happen, but it did, so I'll have to deal with it.

I took my chakra and kinda spread it on the tree, where it stayed. Unfortunately, when I went to lift my hands, I couldn't move. Panicking didn't help either, and in fact, it made it worse, as I unconsciously produced more chakra and ended up stuck even worse to the tree. After around half an hour, I ended up being calm enough to disperse the chakra.

Dispersing the chakra was odd. I kinda, cut off the connection I guess? The chakra dispersed, leaving me exhausted and leaning against a tree. I guess I'll have to figure out a new way to tree climb if this is what happens when I use what I have. Maybe less chakra? Or sticking the chakra to my hands in a coating instead of putting it in the tree? Or taking different amounts of both chakra types? Well, at least I gained something to try out, even if I don't end up being able to do much.

The next morning, once I felt that my chakra stores had been adequately restored, I practiced the different methods that I had come up with and found that if I smoothed a bit of chakra over my hands, I could climb up walls like a tree frog or something.

Unfortunately, "tree frog" is not what I was going for when I tried tree walking. Somehow, I would have to make some sort of support that kept me upright… with my chakra. Huh. No idea how I would do that. So, instead of keeping at it, I went to talk to my father.

A/N: I actually wrote this a while ago and just kinda... forgot to post it. It's up now though!


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